Travel

Good news Greg talked to Delta and I think he got it all worked out! Yay! And yay that I didn’t have to.

 Grace and I are headed to MD for about a week. We stopped at UF, her maybe first choice school, on the way. Neither of us had been there before. It was very nice.

Then we drove for what felt like forever to Buena Vista VA. Tomorrow we tour SVU. 

Last day

 We swam, played Uno all wild, and ate pancakes. 

Then we left for the airport with a lot of extra time.

“Just had an unbelievably bad experience with Delta Airlines. The story is not over so I am hopeful for a satisfactory resolution so stay tuned. 

We arrived at the airport 3 hours early for the kids flight home. It would have been 2 1/2 but the flight was delayed. 

Got to the agent to get the unaccompanied minor thing done and they said they didn’t have a ticket. What?

I had their confirmation numbers, the emails about buying the flight, the credit card I bought the tickets with and eventually my bank statement showing where the money came out of my bank. AND they flew here last week on these same ROUNDTRIP tickets. 

2 1/2 hours later we were sprinting to the gate with tired & hungry kids and I had to buy the tickets again with a promise that they would refund them when I called and explained the situation. 

Too say I am not happy about how this went is an understatement. We intended to come in early, eat, play uno at the gate and enjoy our last hours of the visit.”

From my Facebook.

So is it just me or does it seem like an unusual amount of oddly awful things have been happening the last few years? 

H2O

We went to the water park today. It was hot and wet and fun. Grace came so Penny got to do lots of slides. 

Th Suco’s met us in the afternoon and it was fun to be there with them. I like Becca a lot, I’m sad to make friends and to leave them. 

Marshall calls his Disney pass his “golden Olaf” which is so funny. He cracks me up!

When we got home we ate dinner and then the kids wanted to swim. So we did. 
 

We had sausages and sauerkraut for dinner. The book we’ve been reading is called sauerkraut and they hadn’t tried it before so we decided to give it a try. Marshall actually gave it a look and a poke but Penny ate a bite and said it was okay. Fair enough:)

Park Hopping

 

Disney day is always fun!

We started at Hollywood Studios. Marshall didn’t want to ride anything so Penny and Grace went one way and he and I another. We did do Runaway Railroad all together.

Penny got to ride Rise twice since we did rider swap!

Around 4 Grace took Marshall home to swim and watch TV and eat ice cream. 

Penny and I went to Magic Kingdom.

We closed it down and had all the fun!

Sunday concert

Sundays are busy. We have a new Bishop and he’s got a lot to organize. We had our first ward council this morning.  Grace brought the kids to church and helped Penny do her hair. She also took them home because I had a quick meeting with him after church. 

We had the missionaries over for dinner. We had Hawaiian Haystacks, delish. Then we had an impromptu musical program. It was super sweet. Our last number was everyone singing I Am A Child of God around the table. The spirit was sweet and strong and I was grateful for the moment and each precious person there, 4 wonderful missionaries, 1 beautiful daughter, and 2 perfect grandchildren. My favorite number was when Marshall this cute Elder sang A Child’s Prayer together.

We had a fun 3rd hour. The four of us sat around the table and talked about being obedient to God. I hope my children and grandchildren know that I love Jesus Christ and value serving Him, obeying His commandments, and being a true Follower. I hope I set a good example and make a well worn path to follow. 

Tonight we had BYD. Tomorrow is Disney!

 

Shark Capital

 Of the world!

New Smyrna Beach. 

For the record we have not seen a shark there and we love it there. The sand is white, the water warm, and you can park on.the.beach!

It was pouring rain in Orlando all day. We drove through rain until 1/2 an hour before we got to the beach. The weather there was perfect. Then we drove home in pouring rain. Weird. 

We had so much fun no one wanted to leave. When we started getting rosy around the edges we decided we should. 

On the way home I talked to Dad. I rarely get to because he has no phone but mom left hers behind and was off with Daisy. It was fun to talk to him even though I had called to tell her  Happy Birthday!

I talked to Val, she is home and recovering. And I talked to my best birthday boy Bub! He called from Spain because he knew I wanted to wish him a happy birthday!  He and Elder Storheim celebrated by buying 5 lbs of churros and eating them all. He’s getting transferred this week, and his mission will be splitting. He will be in the Madrid Spain South Mission. 

It’s been so nice having the kids here. We play games in the evenings and read our book to each other and during the day we have so much fun!

The floor is lava

We went to Sea World today. It was 1000 degrees by 9:30am. It was so so hot!

We saw the dolphin show. Rode Atlantis which Marshall hated! Ate lunch. It was still hot.

We saw all the indoor exhibits and visited the gift shops. Still hot!

Then we went to the orca show, Grace was able to finish her test and was coming to meet us so she and Penny could go on rides when the skies opened up. Pouring rain, lightning, wind, and the temperature dropped 25 degrees in about 5 minutes!

We ran to the car. And that was the end of Sea World.

 

Doctor

Charlotte came over to babysit today. She did a great job, she played Clue and Kerplunk with them and I got out the big lego bucket beforehand and they played legos. 

Grace and I went to Arnold Palmer for her next tests. They were awful. I “got” to go with her and it was the longest hour ever. She gagged and cried and felt like she couldn’t breathe. The tube hurt and then she threw up during the test (which was the point). Now she’s wearing the 24 hour sensor which is also awful. She is counting down the minutes until she can pull it out. 

Idk why I’m smiling here except I was glad we were done and I was being encouraging and I usually smile when things are awful so there’s that. 

Also awful Val had her knee replaced today. Poor Val, and poor Grace. And not let’s forget poor Sierra. 
 

When I got home we ate mac and cheese and then went swimming. Grace went to band to measure people for uniforms. 

We went to Disney Springs to see Lightyear. The kids loved it. My favorite part was the cat, Socks. It was cute though. 

After baths we read some more chapters of Sauerkraut. We are all enjoying the book and laughing and wondering what’s next. 

Typhoon Lagoon

There are many delightful things that you get to enjoy when you spend your day with a 7 and 9 year old!

One is you get to feed french fries to a friendly squirrel that visits your table at lunch, and you get to make up a name for him, and an elaborate backstory. Free Fry will forever be our friend now.

Another cool thing is you get to a have a long conversation about shoebills and their cainism. Which leads itself nicely to a talk on Cain and Able. Which then segways into a wondering about what it feels like to die…and then a wondering about if the pineapple milkshake or the banana one is better. You have to pay attention to keep up!

Also there is no judgement if you eat ice cream twice in one day:)

We went to the water park today and it was so fun! We spent about 11 hours swimming (between the park and the Blacks), no one got sunburned, everyone had fun. 

We went on one water slide before Marshall vetoed that activity.  He said it was 12% fun and 80% scary. (I’m glad to see he got his math skills and his tan skin from me)

After we got home from the water park we went to mutual. It was at the Blacks. We met there at 5:30 and didn’t leave until 10:00. The kids and the youth had a great time. It’s  always a party at the Blacks. They fed everyone, the grill was running the whole night, and the s’more fire pit was lit. We had two boats so that was better than last time. 

Penny and Marshall were happy because they saw a wild alligator off the dock after dark.

We enjoyed the lazy river and the wave pool. We also enjoyed the birds. Marshall spotted one he’d never seen before, I told him I thought it was an ibis. Good news I was right. He and I spent a while looking at our bird and shell posters both before and after swimming. He reminds me a lot of Ethan. Smart, cautious, clever, funny, glasses wearing, and thoughtful also Ethan and I like to look at those posters and talk about the birds and shells. 

Penny loved the one slide we did and decided that next time Grace has to come so we can have teams…an adventure team to slide and a Marshall team. She laughed the whole way down, and laughed at M. She’s so much fun. Little Miss Sunshine. She’s also a great momma bear to M, helpful, talented, chatty, happy and smart. 

 

Game room at the party house.

Marshall won PIG

I’m going to send two brown fishies back to UT next week!

Grace brought some friends to mutual, and some of the kids from the “old ward” came. That little dot out there is Grace and Alyssa on the kayak.

Ethan Newell saw a bobcat in the brush while he was kayaking. It was a good animal spotting day!